Books > History > World history > 1750 to 1900
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Edmund Burke (Paperback, New edition)
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Edmund Burke (Paperback, New edition)
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Morley's life of Burke is unique among political biographies. It is
the biography of one politician and literary man written by
another. Each was influential both as a political writer and as a
practising politician. Each was a strong party man, and yet each
broke with his part at a critical moment on an issue of principle.
Burke split the Whig Party because its leaders would not support
him in preaching war against the French Revolution. Morley, having
held senior Cabinet positions in the governments led by Gladstone,
Campbell-Bannerman and Asquith, resigned from Asquith's government
in August 1914, after he had failed to dissuade it from making war
on Germany. Morley was a major influence in Liberal politics before
he entered parliament. As editor of the "Fortnightly Review" he had
tried to develop a coherent and adequate culture of its own for the
middle class which had become the dominant class under the Reform
Act. This was a continuation of Richard Cobden's campaign against
"feudal" culture in English capitalism. Morley recommended to his
readers the French "Enlightenment" writers denounced by Burke.
Morley and Burke were antitheses both personally and in what they
represented socially. Morley's biography is neither nostalgia for
the old order, nor vituperation against it, but a critical
assimilation of Burke into middle class culture. It is the kind of
thing which socialist writers failed to do with relation to either
Morley or Burke - a failure which rendered British socialist
culture brittle, and ready to crumble at the first touch of
Thatcherism. Brendan Clifford provides an introduction about Morley
and Burke, and a postscript on a recent book on Burke by C.C.
O'Brien. A guide to the main personages referred to is also
included.
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